


Account Leading to a Precious Moment

by Gnosya108



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Drama, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22661677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gnosya108/pseuds/Gnosya108
Summary: After an interaction with Nue ends differently than she expected, Kogasa begins to question what she knows about her.
Relationships: Houjuu Nue/Tatara Kogasa
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Account Leading to a Precious Moment

When she felt the hand on her shoulder, she could guess who the hand belonged to. An arm had been wrapped around Kogasa’s shoulders, pulling her closer to the person who’d grabbed her. She regretted, almost immediately, coming to Myouren Temple today, but in exchange for staying in the cemetery, she had to inform Hijiri about what had gone on in the cemetery at least weakly. Usually, Kogasa came by more often, because many of those in the temple were nice youkai to be around.

And yet. She had one issue that wasn’t so much a problem as a minor annoyance. But she’d been due to give a report to Hijiri today, saying that all was going well, that there hadn’t been any major disturbances, though Kogasa may need some help soon if the fairies decide to cause trouble. She could’ve given it tomorrow, and tomorrow would’ve been better. Today had been a long, tired day with not much to show for it.

The fairies weren’t disturbing the cemetery. They likely wouldn’t; informing Hijiri of the potential problem was a precaution, and it was Kogasa’s job anyways. Nonetheless, they’d made a habit lately of bothering Kogasa specifically. Lately she’d discovered a box purporting to be from Sanae, who, by now, had become Kogasa’s friend.

She opened up the box and a pie hit her straight in the chest. Sanae had definitely not sent that box. Sanae played nicer pranks than that, much nicer pranks. Even if she’d been able to suspect Sanae a little bit, Kogasa heard the fairies laughing somewhere in the trees by her house.

After changing, she’d done her rounds, and had gone down to the village on her break, which was at the time she always took her break, for the time she always took her break. She’d set her break to a definite time out of a sense of duty, to make it feel more like a job. A child had run into her on the streets. A few old men had questioned her about her business. Also, Keine had asked her to help with the lessons on the weekend.

She was one of the best treated of all youkai, and, beyond that, being one of the youkai of the Myouren Temple, if only tangentially, meant that most people outright trusted her. The old men who questioned her weren’t as trusting of the Myouren temple as others, and had taken up most of her break interrogating her about her true intentions, when she’d already given them. Her true intentions were to take a walk about the village.

That had ruined the rest of her day. Hijiri also wouldn’t mind Kogasa giving a report tomorrow, instead. Kogasa simply did it out of her sense of duty, and some thanks to Hijiri for letting her stay in the graveyard. So when she was leaving the temple and felt that familiar hand on her shoulder, she felt a long, deep distress.

“Hiya! Ain’t seen you in a bit.” Nue’s smile was as mischievous as always. Kogasa sensed something different today. If she hadn’t been tired, she would’ve cared enough to be afraid. Today, however, she kept on walking, although Nue came with her. “Ko-ga-sa,” said Nue. “Cutie, where’re you going? You just got here.”

“Back to the cemetery. It’s been a long day.” Kogasa’s hair was ruffled roughly by Nue’s hand, the one that’d been on her shoulder, the familiar and annoying hand. It was a pretty hand, though. Nue always wore red or black fingernail polish. She kept her fingernails sharp and scratched the back of Kogasa’s head sometimes. It was comfortable on better days, confusing most days.

“You should stay at the temple. We have some spare beds.” Nue’s floated off the ground and now was in front of Kogasa, arms crossed, but going backwards so that Kogasa could keep on walking.

“I’d feel guilty if I stayed here while not practicing.” Nue laughed, and didn’t explain why, because Kogasa knew that Nue didn’t practice Buddhism except in very small, simple ways. She prayed to guardian deities. Sometimes she meditated. She helped out here and there in the temple, mostly when distributing food or clothes.

“Don’t worry about it, and you could just stay tonight. If you’re so tired then you could avoid the long walk.” Nue had almost convinced Kogasa, but Kogasa was afraid of what Nue was planning. The issue between them wasn’t that Kogasa thought Nue was a bad person, or that she disliked her company, it was more that Nue’s actions tended to confuse Kogasa. She acted overly friendly and attempted to get Kogasa to take part in her plots and schemes. That weird mix didn’t sit well. Kogasa was afraid she’d end up the fall guy.

“I’m staying at Moriya Shrine tonight,” lied Kogasa. “I told Sanae I would.”

“Awww, you’d rather stay with Sanae than with me?” asked Nue.

“I really, really would prefer most people more.” Nue stopped moving and Kogasa bumped into her. For a second, Kogasa saw the look on Nue’s face, something that seemed very sad and painful, and then Nue suddenly flew off. Kogasa stared after Nue, who landed on the temple grounds. By now Kogasa had left the temple grounds. She wondered if she should go back. Something else occurred to her, the idea having been put into her head a few moments ago. Kogasa prepared herself mentally for a long, tiring flight.

The Moriya Shrine was high up on Youkai Mountain. When Kogasa arrived, dusk had come and had almost turned fully into night. In many ways, the journey wasn’t worth it, not after the long day that she’d been through. Also, though, Kogasa had understood, upon seeing Nue’s face, that there’d been something between them that she’d missed. Something that Nue hadn’t told her. This new unknown made her want, desperately, to find an answer. She didn’t know why. She only knew that she wanted to.

Sanae was, understandably, tired when Kogasa arrived, and wasn’t ready to talk. Kogasa didn’t ask her to. Instead, after seeing her face, she asked for a bed. Suwako, who was just as sleepy as Sanae was, lead her to a spare room they had. While she did sleep, and sleep for a while, Kogasa didn’t feel very rested in the morning.

When she explained to Sanae what had happened while having tea and breakfast, she couldn’t bring herself to say everything she had inside of her until Sanae, as nice as she could, pressed Kogasa to say everything, and everything became said.

“I don’t. Understand her. I can’t. Are we friends? She doesn’t really try to hang out with me, she just bothers me when I’m there. I can’t figure her out at all. She takes advantage of Sister Hijiri’s kindness. She schemes and plots and tries to get me in trouble. Every plan she has for me scaring people scares me.” Kogasa laid her head in her arms, on the breakfast table. Kanako and Suwako had gone to meet with the Kappa about some business or other, or maybe they just left Sanae and Kogasa alone to talk.

“Maybe she’s trying to be nice,” said Sanae. “Reimu always competes with me, and she drinks too much, and she keeps passing me sake when I’m at the Hakurei Shrine. But. She passes me the sake because she wants to be my friend.” Sanae rubbed a hand on Kogasa’s shoulder. She hoped it made her feel better. Really, Kogasa was too deep in thought to notice very much, although what she did notice, she was grateful for. Sanae was one of the nicer people she’d met.

“I. Sorta understand that. But why doesn’t she tell me? It feels like she doesn’t tell me anything, only keeps on trying to get me to do this, or do that.”

“Do you wanna do any of it?”

“What do I wanna do…” Kogasa had to stop to think about it. What did she wanna do? Did she wanna be friends with Nue? Did she wanna get to know Nue? There was a nebulous something that made Nue something besides only an annoyance, but there remained, fundamentally, the obscurity of Nue’s motivation. What did Nue want? It seemed like Nue --- not regarding Kogasa, but instead generally, with regard to everything --- it seemed like Nue always acted in order to accomplish something for herself. It was never anything truly harmful. It was never anything more than a way of gathering faith or fear.

“I don’t wanna be a tool,” said Kogasa. “I don’t wanna be her tool. I’m scared of her. But I think. That when I saw her face. I realized, that’s not what she wants at all. Maybe it’d happen. It’s Nue. But.” Kogasa sat up straight.

“I think she wants to be your friend,” said Sanae.

The horizon had finally let go of the sun by the time Kogasa left. The trip down was as long but less tiring than the trip up. When she landed in the graveyard, in front of her house, her sandal touched the ground and suddenly she released all her weight into the domain of gravity. She took stock of the graveyard, made sure that nothing had been disturbed in her absence. Her nervousness and, separately but as important to her, her sense of duty prevented her from immediately walking to Myouren Temple. As the hours passed, she realized her nervousness would only continue to grow until, finally, she talked to Nue.

Late in the afternoon, she made the short walk to the temple. The tension, largely quelled by her talk with Sanae, returned with a similar strength. It had a different methodology this time. The tension pricked at different parts of Nue’s thoughts. Only the general idea of inevitability drew her onwards.

Murasa let her in. She said hello to Ichirin and Unzan while going through the halls. They didn’t say anything about the nervousness. They’d likely talked to Nue and had an idea of what was going on.

Kogasa knocked on the door to Nue’s room. When the door opened, Nue looked irritated. Immediately at realizing the person she’d opened the door to was Kogasa, her face shifted into something of surprise, then panic, then simply the same hurt expression as yesterday. Kogasa couldn’t be reassuring, because she still had no idea what was going on.

“Can I come in?” she asked. Nue didn’t say if she could or not. She just walked over to her futon and laid down on it. Kogasa sat next to her. Nothing was said for a while. Here, at the beginning, they were between the before and the after. What they were to each other, someone liked or not, wasn’t possible to know. Kogasa ended up saying the first words. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For being so mean and saying that. It’s. I don’t know what you want from me?” Nue had been facing away from Kogasa. She continued to. She did, though, glance at Kogasa for a second, with confusion. “You. Have a lotta people you only seem to try and get something outta. I don’t wanna be one of those people.”

“I don’t use them. They’d business associates. We work together.” Nue said it clearly, as if it should’ve been obvious. Kogasa wondered if it was. Often, Nue played a prank and tried to get someone else to take the fall. The pranks never were serious, true. But, they were something that Nue did. They also weren’t something Nue was thinking of right now. Nue had something on her mind.

“See, your pranks---”

“Those are just jokes.” Kogasa could hear the irritation in Nue’s voice. “I screw with people, but I ain’t use them. I ain’t hurt them.”

“But, I couldn’t tell if you were using them. They were the people who got blamed until Hijiri found you out and you admitted it. It’s not a nice thing to do.” Kogasa waited for a response from Nue, who seemed to be coming up with one. Kogasa hoped it wasn’t an excuse.

“Alright. Maybe I let them take the fall, but I ain’t use them. They’re my friends.”

“I don’t wanna take the fall. I like Hijiri. I don’t want her to think badly of me.”

“She don’t think bad of no one. She ain’t do nothing just because of a prank, or else I’d be gone by now. My pranks are just screwing with people. Ain’t no use in hurting them.” Nue finally turned to face Kogasa. There was a weird earnestness visible in her expression. The earnestness wasn’t something Kogasa ever would’ve expected to see from her.

“Listen,” said Nue. “I ain’t do nothing like that to fuck people over, just to fuck with people. It’s fun. I like it here because no one cares. We’re all the same here, we’re all troublesome people. And this ain’t my way of it, but we’re the people who understand, ya gotta understand people. We understand that.”

“I had no idea what you were doing, so it’s been hard for me to understand you. I could only assume, and most of what I’d known of you is what I’ve heard. You cause more trouble than the rest. You don’t practice. Hijiri worries about you. Hijiri gave me the graveyard. I have to respect what she says.”

“I get it. I fucked up by fucking with people too much. You hate me now, too.” Kogasa wondered if this was something Nue was afraid of, or if it was something she was doing to escape blame. The only thing that kept Kogasa assuming the best of Nue she could was that earnestness. It hadn’t left Nue’s face since Kogasa first noticed it.

“I don’t hate you. But I wanna know. Why’re you always trying to get me into your schemes, or try to get me to stay at the temple, or. Everything else you ask? I’d always assumed there wasn’t a good reason for it. But now it seems like you wanna be my friend.” Nue reached for one of Kogasa’s hands and held it. Even though Kogasa didn’t understand any of why, she let it happen. Whatever was happening, despite how much Kogasa didn’t know, she’d trust Nue enough to allow her to approach.

“I think you’re really fucking cute,” said Nue. “That’s why.” The several seconds that it took Kogasa to understand what was being meant passed with Nue turning away from Kogasa again. She’d let go of Kogasa’s hand too. Kogasa, when she understood, still said nothing, because understanding it didn’t mean she knew how to react, or what to say. Once she’d taken in everything, she could speak again.

“Nue. You think I’m cute?”

“Yes. So I wanneda talk to you and stuff. And hang around and drink together and stuff.” Kogasa almost asked surprisedly if there was alcohol in the temple, but realized that it was almost certain that there was. “Maybe you don’t hate me, but I guess that, well, you wouldn’t wanna date or nothing if you think of me what you do.”

“You’re not like that I thought, though. And I like you like this. You’re not just teasing me. I like that.” Kogasa tentatively put a hand on Nue’s arm. Like Sanae had done to her, Kogasa ran her hand up and down, reassuringly. “I’d go out with you if you asked me.”

“You would?” asked Nue.

“I would.”

Suddenly and quickly, Nue rolled so that she was facing Kogasa, and wrapped Kogasa in her arms. Nue didn’t say anything, didn’t cry. She breathed calmly. Kogasa wondered what look she had on her face. She wondered what Nue felt, right now, but knew that asking wouldn’t be the best thing to do. When she felt Nue’s hand in her hair, petting her softly, there came the thought, “this is precious.”

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I can tell, this is the first outright KogaNue thing on Ao3. I'm both proud of that and sad. We need more KogaNue ;_;
> 
> Thanks for reading, kudos and compliments appreciated :)


End file.
